Juan Francisco

Juan is a displaced person from Sincelejo; he’s 40-years-old, in a common law relationship and has three children who are 9, 7 and 3 years of age. To start supporting himself in a new city he needed to sell fruit in the street to provide sustenance for his children.

In time, Juan got the opportunity of buying merchandise and at present is selling women’s clothing that his wife makes; she has a home-based sewing workshop. However, they manage their businesses separately because his wife manufactures for other businesses downtown in order to have resources for her family.

In addition to selling the clothes his wife makes, Juan also sells cell phones minutes because there are many passersby in the sector where his business is located. He’s requesting the loan to stock up on more merchandise (women’s clothing) for his business.

Additional Information

Important Information

This loan is structured on Kiva as a bullet loan, which means a single payment is required at the end of the loan term. By Colombian law, Kiva's partner Interactuar is required to offer borrowers loans with a variable interest rate that fluctuates with the market rate. Because fixed monthly payments are applied first to interest and then to principal, Interactuar is unable to predict upfront what portion of each repayment would go towards the loan principal. This creates a challenge with Kiva's system, which doesn't allow for unpredictable principal payments, and can result in some Interactuar clients appearing falsely delinquent. To remedy this, the loan has an end-of-term repayment plan on Kiva, but the borrower will continue scheduled monthly repayments to Interactuar, who will then pass along the principal amount to Kiva lenders. This means that you may see repayments made on this loan throughout the repayment term, as opposed to receiving repayment in full at the end of the loan term.